MTG Salvation

Eidolon of Obstruction

Now this is a hatebear. I like that the tax is one-sided, and first strike is great to allow this Eidolon to get in combat while taxing opposing Planeswalkers.

This is pretty neat. Definitely considering, maybe over Adanto Vanguard.

I think the body is too weak in too many matchups, considering that a lot of games don't come down to planeswalkers.
Even when the games do come down to walkers, the tax is good, but it isn't devastating.

Pass for me.

I'll probably be playing this, but that's mostly because I want to include a lot of enchantment creatures.

The hate effect is far from devastating, so this really is mostly a Youthful Knight. Against a planeswalker based deck, this can be trouble, but many planeswalkers have ways of removing this dude anyway.

I'll probably cut Sunhome Stalwart for this. I'd say Stalwart's +0/+1 and mentor tends to outweigh this guys' narrow and light taxing effect, and I wouldn't make the switch if I didn't care about enchantments (also Stalwart is boring). I'd play this over Adanto Vanguard, but I never liked that card.

I think this card is pretty decent, actually (but I also have an unhealthy love of First strike creatures, so, I dunno). I mean, I do just want enchantment creatures, but, this will jam the control decks that want to play PWs for defense. Turn 3 Teferi or LotV can't deal with your threats. Turn 4 JTMS does nothing. Turn 5 Gideon Jura isn't doing any protection whatsoever.

I don't think he's among the strongest 2 drops available, but I think cards like this may be more potent in Cubes that have begun to saturate with PWs. I think this is especially important in my cube, because there is far less emphasis on combo, with far more aggro/midrange/control decks running around. Between the enchantments matters theme and this, I think he'll get a spin here.

Quote from steve_man »

Quote from Cythare »

This is pretty neat. Definitely considering, maybe over Adanto Vanguard.

I think Adanto Vanguard is one of the better aggressive 2-drops, it's so resilient.

Adanto Vanguard is definitely one of the better aggressive 2-drops, but there's only so much space in cube. It's possible that it's correct to just not even test this, but would you cut any of these instead of Vanguard?

Charming Prince
Kor Skyfisher
Remorseful Cleric
Selfless Spirit
Stoneforge Mystic
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Wall of Omens

I like all of those better than this new card.

Quote from kingneb »

I like all of those better than this new card.

Agreed!

Cheers,
rant

I think this kind of tax is, in the end, too weak. Thalia can prevent them from getting their PW down on a crucial turn, but once the PW is down, adding a tax of one mana to an already free spell seems anemic. I could imagine a scenario where they need to activate JTMS to dig for a fifth land to cast a spell that turns the board to their favor, but not really much else?

I think the bigger impact is taxing the 'walker the turn it's cast. It's rough to have to pay for the 'walker and the activation cost for the ability in the same turn. This will do more to disrupt 'walkers that aren't even on the board yet than it will to ones already on the battlefield.

I wish this did slightly more... I can’t think of any one thing that would have made this card Cubeable for me, but as it stands I think it’s a bit underpowered.

Decks with tax stuff like Tangle Wire, Strip Mine, Rishadan Port, both Thalias, Crucible effects and a low curve could make a good use of it. Otherwise, I think it doesn't do enough unless your cube environment is oversatured with planeswalkers and every drafter is maindecking like 4+ of them.

And Wtwlf is right though, it really shines against in-hand, on-curve, planeswalkers.

I think this probably isn't good enough, but it's a very interesting effect we haven't seen before. I really wish it was red since red was hurt by the damage redirection rule change and needs more ways to interact with PWs.

I am going to test it, because it's a cool effect we haven't seen before and a floor of 2/1 first strike for 1W isn't that low.

Im not too excited by this guy, alot of decks wont care about the tax effect. It feel like too often it will juat be a 2/1 first striker.